S-1737

AN ACT Relating to the Washington environment 21 commission; adding a new chapter to Title 43 RCW; and providing an expiration date.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

NEW SECTION. Sec. 1. COMMISSION ON WASHINGTON ENVIRONMENT 21 CREATED. (1) There is created the Washington environment 21 commission.

(2) The commission shall consist of no fewer than fourteen members as follows:

(a) Four members appointed by the governor as representatives of business and industry, agriculture, local government, and environmental organizations;

(b) Four members appointed jointly by the president of the senate and the speaker of the house of representatives as representatives of business and industry, agriculture, local government, and environmental organizations;

(c) Four members of the house of representatives, two from each major caucus, appointed by the speaker of the house of representatives;

(d) Four members of the senate, two from each major caucus, appointed by the president of the senate;

(e) The director of the office of financial management or the director's designee and the director of the department of ecology; and

(f) Representatives of tribal governments and the United States environmental protection agency shall be invited to participate by the commission.

(3) The chair and vice-chair shall be selected by the commission at its first meeting, which shall be called by the governor within ninety days of the effective date of this section.

(4) Whenever the commission considers the subject of the relationship and integration of the state's environmental and growth management programs, the director of the department of community, trade, and economic development shall participate on the commission. Whenever the commission considers subjects relating to the management of state-owned natural resources, the commissioner of public lands shall be invited to participate on the commission. Whenever the commission considers the subject of drinking water quality or quantity the secretary of the department of health shall participate on the commission. Whenever the commission considers subjects relating to fish and wildlife and their habitats, the director of the department of fish and wildlife shall participate on the commission.

(5) The commission may create such subcommittees and advisory bodies for technical, fiscal, or other expertise as will facilitate the commission's performance of its duties.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 2. COMMISSION DUTIES. The commission shall develop recommendations for legislative and executive consideration and implementation that will:

(1) Increase the reliance upon environmental strategies that emphasize market incentives, pollution prevention, public education, and technical assistance;

(2) Reduce inefficiency, duplication, and inconsistency in program implementation by local, state, and federal agencies;

(3) Achieve greater consistency among the goals, standards, and objectives of existing environmental quality statutes, and assist the legislature in better integrating new statutory goals and objectives to existing statutory provisions;

(4) Build upon the recommendations of the land use study commission for integrating the state's environmental and growth management programs;

(5) Ensure that the relative priority of environmental threats to the state is a central consideration in the development of state operating and capital budgets for environmental programs;

(6) Achieve a uniform, consistent, and high-quality periodic assessment of the state's environmental quality, improve monitoring and data management relating to environmental quality, and establish a system to assess state-wide environmental trends over time to assist in developing policies and budgets; and

(7) Reduce or eliminate environmental programs or activities that do not provide a substantial contribution to maintaining the state's environmental quality.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 3. ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY STATUTES‑-REVIEW‑-RECOMMENDATIONS. The commission shall review the explicit goals and objectives of the state's major environmental quality statutes and make recommendations to the legislature and governor to reconcile conflicting or inconsistent provisions. The commission shall also review and make recommendations for integrating and making consistent environmental standards applicable to the same activities.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 4. REVIEW OF ENVIRONMENTAL PROGRAMS. (1) In conducting its duties relating to increasing reliance upon alternative environmental strategies, the commission shall review existing environmental programs in the state of Washington to assess their capability to address the threats to the state's environmental quality anticipated in the state over the next twenty years. The commission shall further review and make specific recommendations for legislative and administrative action to implement alternative methods to achieve comparable or greater environmental protection in a cost-efficient manner, considering both public and private costs. Examples that the commission may consider include, but are not limited to:

(a) Market incentives, such as marketable permits or auctions of emission allowances;

(b) Consolidated permits that integrate two or more existing permit requirements for a single land use or activity;

(c) Expansion of pollution credit trading where allowed in existing programs, and extension of such policies to other programs;

(d) Pollution prevention programs;

(e) Increased public and consumer education to achieve voluntary actions where cumulative impacts of numerous activities make traditional regulatory methods impractical;

(f) Reduced permit requirements for closed-loop industrial processes;

(g) Greater reliance upon technical assistance to businesses to achieve compliance with regulatory requirements.

(2) In conducting its review under this section the commission shall identify obstacles to implementing recommended alternative environmental strategies due to federal law constraints and shall make recommendations on methods to obtain necessary federal approvals to remove the obstacles.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 5. ENVIRONMENTAL RISK REDUCTION‑-BUDGET DEVELOPMENT‑-TRUST FUNDS‑-REVIEW‑-RECOMMENDATIONS. (1) The commission shall review the relative risk of those environmental threats addressed by existing state programs, and compare this risk with the relative levels of fiscal resources committed in the operating and capital budgets of the programs. In determining the relative risk the commission may rely upon existing reports such as those prepared under the department of ecology's environment 2010 project and other relative risk reports prepared by the department and the United States environmental protection agency. The commission shall make recommendations on existing and future budgetary levels to achieve greater total risk reduction when considering all environmental threats addressed by state programs.

(2) The commission shall also review and make recommendations for changes in budget development procedures within state agencies and the office of financial management to achieve greater consistency of budgetary levels with the relative risk from different environmental threats. For this purpose the commission shall review the restrictions within existing dedicated fund sources for environmental programs and make recommendations for changes to such funds for greater flexibility to address the most significant environmental threats.

(3) The commission shall evaluate the role of state tax policy in protecting the state's environmental quality and ecological resources. The commission shall make recommendations for strengthening the utility of tax policy as an instrument to achieve the goals and objectives of the state's environmental quality statutes.

(4) The commission shall analyze proposals for environmental trust funds and make recommendations regarding the creation of such a fund or funds for the purpose of providing comprehensive mechanisms to better address environmental threats as they change over time.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 6. ENVIRONMENTAL STATISTICS AND TRENDS. The commission shall review existing programs for the collection, maintenance, and dissemination of environmental quality data, and shall make recommendations for the creation of a single, state-wide, geographically based system for the maintenance of environmental quality data, statistics, and trends. The program should be designed to be administered by a single authority responsible for maintaining environmental quality information based upon monitoring and other data collected by other entities. The commission shall make recommendations on methodologies to establish and maintain trend analyses for environmental parameters that will be useful for program administration, policy development, and environmental budgeting, as well as understandable to the public. The recommended program should ensure high quality and objective data and analyses.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 7. STRENGTHENING THE ROLE OF SCIENCE IN PUBLIC POLICY DEVELOPMENT. The commission shall make recommendations for strengthening the role of science in the development of policies for protecting Washington's environmental quality. The recommendations should address the means by which existing scientific expertise in agencies within local and state government, within the state's institutions of higher education, and in other public institutions may provide scientific expertise and advice to:

(1) Assist the legislature and state agencies in the formulation of environmental quality policies, and in the adoption of program budgets, that address significant threats to environmental quality, and to ensure that the limited public and private resources available for environmental protection strategies be allocated consistently with the relative magnitude of environmental threats;

(2) Periodically evaluate and make recommendations to the legislature and the governor on environmental monitoring and data management systems to assess trends in different environmental parameters comprehensively;

(3) Make recommendations for modifying existing policies and programs to address new or increased environmental threats, as well as reduced or eliminated environmental threats; and

(4) Assist the legislature and state agencies in ensuring that laws and rules for the protection of environmental quality take into account the relative risk associated with the threat being addressed, and the nature and extent of such risk assessed under sound scientific review.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 8. COMMISSION WORK PLAN. By December 1, 1999, the commission shall submit a work plan to the legislative standing committees on the environment on carrying out the duties of this chapter during the four-year period of the commission's existence. The commission shall endeavor to set priorities under the work plan to complete and submit reports requiring legislative action to coincide with the commencement of the regular sessions of the legislature. Periodic reports of the commission's progress in completing the three-year work plan shall be provided to the legislative standing committees on the environment.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 9. REIMBURSEMENT. Nonlegislative members of the commission shall be reimbursed for travel expenses for attending meetings of the commission or any commission subgroups as provided for in RCW 43.03.050 and 43.03.060. Legislative members shall be reimbursed for travel expenses for attending meetings of the commission as provided for in RCW 44.04.120.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 10. STAFF. (1) The office of financial management and the legislature shall provide staff as required by the commission to conduct its duties under this chapter. The office of the attorney general shall provide advice and counsel as required by the commission to conduct its duties under this chapter. All agencies, the directors or chief executive officers of which serve on the commission, shall provide staff as required by the commission to conduct its duties under this chapter. All agencies of state and local government shall cooperate fully with the commission in carrying out its duties under this chapter, and to the extent permitted by law shall provide all information requested by the commission.

(2) The commission may contract for such services as are necessary to supplement the staff as provided in this section.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 11. GIFTS, GRANTS, AND ENDOWMENTS. The commission may receive and spend gifts, grants, and endowments from private or nonstate sources to carry out the purposes of this chapter.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 12. CAPTIONS NOT LAW. Captions used in this chapter are not any part of the law.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 13. EXPIRATION OF CHAPTER. This chapter expires June 30, 2003.

NEW SECTION. Sec. 14. Sections 1 through 13 of this act constitute a new chapter in Title 43 RCW.